PUTNEY — Sandglass Theater will present the Québécois theater company Les Sages Fous (Wise Fools) for two performances of Tricyckle. The performances are on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 1 and 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Putney Central School gymnasium.
A man in a Québec town, born in a cardboard box, roams the city collecting other people's junk. Why? And how does this junk transform his life and, possibly, ours?
Tricyckle is a dream-like adventure of mystery and transformation. A renegade "carny" from the Fairground rides a tricycle and pulls a trailer full of objects that seem most insignificant; boxes and scraps of things rusted and broken. However, hidden within is a deep puzzle of buried memories and fragmented dreams.
His tricycle becomes his accomplice, transforming itself at moments into a Wheel of Fortune, a Ferris wheel, a punch clock, a beautiful woman, and a beast. His trailer and the boxes within it reveal secrets, changing into cityscapes, back alleys, cargo ships, and fairgrounds. Through a strange and curious ritual of introspection, the tricycle guides the man to relive the cycles and images of his life in a search for freedom.
Les Sages Fous are inspired by men who roam the city of Trois-Rivières on their old tricycles, looking for all kinds of materials they carry on their makeshift trailers. The company is also inspired by people who make folk art - those who are not professional artists with all the baggage and allegiance to the institutions involved.
With Tricyckle, Les Sages Fous say they hope to break down barriers between high culture and popular art. Les Sages Fous will be "transforming the Putney Central School gymnasium into a magical space for unusual theater with an intriguing musical score composed solely of invented instruments created with found objects," say organizers.
Les Sages Fous has been creating original puppetry performances for twenty years in Québec as well as abroad, and during that time, Les Sages Fous and Sandglass Theater have sustained a rich history of collaboration and exchange.
Tickets for Tricyckle are available at sandglasstheater.org and at the door; $20 general admission, $18 for students and seniors, and $16 for EBT & Medicaid cardholders.
Tricyckle is co-presented by the Putney Central School. It is funded in part by touring support from the Québec government, a grant from The Vermont Arts Council with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
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